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Sunday, 23 June 2013

23rd June 1933 - Mary to Terrick

OfficeFridayI thought - 'well I'll just have a nice clear 20 minutes to start Fitz's letter and finish it when I get home this evening' - but 'the best laid plans of mice & men etc' - 3 telephone calls form obscure customers who would like to have an ounce of this & that ready in half-an-hour etc., have only left me 5 minutes. But still, I suppose I might as well start.

Thank you for letter - and very much indeed for all the postcards - are you spending the whole of your limited income on stamps to me? - you should just see our ancient postman gallantly staggering up the front path, completely obliterated under Dinard and surrounding places of interest! I think he's decided to take his family there for annual holiday - he finds your descriptions of the excursions so entertaining! Your letter, by the way, was largely labelled 'London, France'. But I expect someone who had Matriculated at the G.P.O., had it on good authority that London was actually somewhere in England.- I love your white bags! - I somehow hadn't imagined you wore them - because I always see you in your new plus-fours smelling vilely of petrol!! - I'll try & remember & enclose the snaps back in this - haven't you got lots more I would enjoy looking at? - I've just had another lot of mine done - they're rotten as usual but I'll send you the best to look at - only send mine back too! (note comments on back for further enlightenment).- It's a long time since I last wrote to you isn't it - I've got heaps to tell you about "me" - but I'll start on asking questions about you. What are your plans at the moment - are you moving? - anyway we're not coming anywhere near you for our holidays - on talking it all over & discussing ways & means - (& Norah having spent a whole afternoon at the Ploy. place being told that we could only leave on a Thursday or Saturday - if the former we should have to pay 2 extra days - if the latter, we should have to come home 2 days early, or something) - we decided it was just a bit too expensive - so our latest idea is a boat to Oslo - in which, it appears, for the lucre we're prepared to expiate, we both have to sleep with someone else's feet in our mouths - or similar discomfort to that effect! But it would be rather fun - something different, anyway - only I'm afraid George Lunn won't provide us with anything interesting in the shape of guide, instructor & friend!! - But never mind, perhaps we shall both manage to pick up a hairdresser (bound to be heaps!) - and, anyway, they are useful! - I haven't decided what to do for the other week yet - something with but minor expenditure I fear! - Isn't money - or rather the lack of it - a curse? The family are all going to Devon for 3 weeks on 1st August - so I have to be pushed around on various fond relations!Is Ian staying on at Dinard? - He sounds a bit too O.K. for me - I do like something calm! - Is he in love with anybody specially - I fail to see why his 'complementary' remarks on snap of me in dashing jumper should be put down to 'only his good manners'! Fancy old Paul still being keen on Brenda - do you think she's worth it? - I think he's too young - & she sounds too experienced (I always think of Paul as a small boy compared with you!) - men should never marry until they're 30 - and women when they're 24-25. - men need a good 12 years to 'run the gamut' as t'were - women tire of it after 5 - at least - those worth anything do!

- Your discrepancies over "resolution" made me chuckle in my beard for ages - should it make me feel like that? - it's absolutely impossible for me to understand what you get out of it at all - I simply can't put myself in your place just to see - or in the females either, for that matter - do they really enjoy it? - I could just understand it after knowing a person for 3 months - but 3 weeks seems ridiculous. - but, who knows, perhaps it won't one day! - the first & last time I happen to have kissed an eligible male was in the dining room over a glass of lemonade - & it was entirely unintentional anyway!

* * * * *

- The Tattoo was glorious - & it kept fairly fine too - Norah & I sitting on our cushioned forms, wrapped in the car rug - with our feet on the suburban newspaper! - I sat (on the other side) next a youth to whom every single item on the programme was 'wizard' - not once - but about 40 times - until I could have hit him - he had quite a nice youth next to him who said 'mauve' exactly like you would.

We had a topping picnic supper afterwards, in the car - and went for a walk afterwards wrapped in the one rug - at about 2.0 a.m. - it was magnificently cold - & stimulating. Going back N. nearly fell asleep over the wheel - so we had to stop & drink hot coffee to wake her up!

- Yesterday we went to see 'The Green Bay Free' by Mordaunt Sharpe at Golders Green - most amazing play - practically entirely symbolical in meaning - too deep for me altogether I think - but thoroughly enjoyable and "thinky" -

Katie has been giving me another eyeful this week.

1) I'm a very wicked child for saying I enjoy thunderstorms because an old gentleman was killed by lightening in a cemetery last week

(Hadn't thought of this before!)

2) The scent I use makes her feel absolutely bilious, so she is unable to work

(actually talcum powder - Carnation - jolly fine!)

3) She hopes I will take no offence 0 but unless I keep a tight hold on myself my figure will be ruined - & I shall spread & spread.

(just like she's done! - Heaven help my hold!)

4) - I'm far too young & innocent, but when, Miss Ormiston, you have been in business as long as I have, you'll realize that nine people in ten are dishonest at the bottom - & you can never trust anybody whose eyebrows meet in the middle (per usual - as lib)

- Gad - she is a worm. - She's got tomorrow morning off because she's got a cist on her head & has to go to doctor - perhaps he'll certify her or something!

* * * * *

Your postcard has just arrived from Paris - the postman looked quite excited over the change - only he's afraid there won't be any more for sometime as we've had all the ones from Mentone (how do you pronounce it?) - anyway you'll have to make up with letters - because you'll have lots & lots of time! 0 oh shall I come over and be the fourth client? - Perhaps the Poly would loan me one of their sea-gulls to fly on! -

Mr Lingwood says the stamps on your P.C. being stuck on sideways means either 'a large slobbery kiss' or else you were out late when you posted it! - let's hope it was merely the latter!

- Can you explain German politics to me? - by 'to me' I mean nice & easily and lady-likely - Who is Hitler? - & Nazis? - & Ogpus? - & Socialists? - Oh they do all muddle me - & I'm not really interested, only think I ought to be.

Why don't they let you come home for a weekend? - & we'll go for a picnic & bathe for hours & hours - Oh isn't this foolish

- I must go & clear my infantile mind with a bath.

* * * * *

Haven't had bath as kitchen fire has gone out & consequently water is cold - but am now in bed.

- My elocution course (which you always try so hard to sound as if you were interested in!) - will take at least 2 years - probably more as I'm so lazy & unenterprising - but who knows, one day it may be my privilege to administer unto the minds of the young and impress the beauty of sound and rhythm upon them! - Will you send your eldest daughter to me? - I'll be awfully good by that time! - I've just got 'Second Selection from Modern Poets' - a lovely book - the one I like best so far is 'Sonnets' by Gerald Gould - you must read it one day just to see if you like it too. - & "Miss Thompson goes shopping" is a glorious thing too. I enclose a small piece I found in it because it's so exactly how I've often felt about myself - have you? I love it - it's so true.

- All the things you put in my letters - are they things you really mean - or do you put somethings because you think that's what I expect you to put?

- Ah, well, it's time I stopped rambling once more, I suppose, & went to sleep - grown-ups are playing bridge.

- My holiday starts on July 15!! - Whoopee!! - If it wasn't for Norah & summer holidays I should feel like the sign-post on the road to Marlow "This way to the Cemetery - There is no road beyond"!! (I think that's perfect!) - Susan (my white woolly rabbit lying beside me) sends her love and so do M.P.O., Mary Ormiston, Pleasant Mary & Me.